Kondisi Sanitasi Peralatan dan Air pada Tahapan Produksi Keju Melalui Pengujian Jumlah Total Mikroorganisme dan Koliform

Abstract

Equipment and water sanitation is very important in cheese industry. Poor sanitation of the equipments and water can contaminate the product, which can affect the safety and quality of the product. The study was aimed to determine the number of total microorganisms and coliforms from equipments and water which are used by the cheese production. Samples were consisted of 18 equipments, water and solution of salt water which was taken every week for five weeks. Total plate count method (pour plate method) was used to detect the total of microorganisms and coliforms, but the detection of coliform in the water was using the most probable number method. The highest number of total microorganisms and coliforms in separation process was found in separator bowl (85679.4 ± 143127.6 cfu/cm2 and 7564.1 ± 1490.9 cfu/cm2). In the process of pasteurization and formation of cheese curd, the highest number of total microorganisms and coliforms were found in a bucket of hot water (54096.6 ± 76801.7 cfu/cm2 and 12950.0 ± 17726.1 cfu/cm2). The pressing and salting process showed that the highest number of total of microorganisms (20722.0 ± 30613.7 cfu/cm2) and coliforms (2881.7 ± 4875.3 cfu/cm2) were found in cheese basket. During the ripening process, the highest number of total microorganisms was found in the coating tub (18150.0 ± 33448.5 cfu/cm2), whereas the highest number of coliforms was found in the cheese ripening rack (2728.7 ± 4908.8 cfu/cm2). Solution of salt water had the highest total number of microorganisms and coliforms (45123.6 ± 88988.1 cfu/ml and 11.0 ± 0.0 MPN/ml). It is very important to keep monitoring the total number of microorganisms and coliforms found in water and equipments used during the process of cheese production since it could be the sources of pathogen contamination to the food which may cause foodborne illness.